Latest Black Sabbath Articles

As we reported last fall, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi and Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan got together to form WhoCares, releasing two songs for a good cause -- to raise funds to rebuild a music school in Armenia.

Led by their three-headed guitar frenzy and unabashed Black Sabbath worship, Black Spiders have hit the ground running in the UK. Their debut album, Sons of the North, was met with critical and commercial approval across the pond last year, and the band were selected by Ozzy Osborne to open on Ozzfest's UK leg. More recently, they were just hand-picked by Thin Lizzy to open for a run of shows in May.

After a supposedly leaked lineup for this year's Lollapalooza appeared online over the weekend listed Black Sabbath among the headliners, the rumor mill swung into action, debating over the authenticity of the document which also showed Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Black Keys and Jack White among the festival's lead acts.

Back in January, it was revealed that Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi had been diagnosed with lymphoma, and would be undergoing treatment while the reunited Sabbath got to work on their new album. Iommi and his bandmates remained optimistic about the guitarist's condition, promising fans that their album fans would be unaffected by Iommi's diagnosis.

Nineteen hundred and seventy-two is one of those rare years -- like, say, 1967, 1969, 1971 and 1991 -- that saw the release of several seminal rock albums. As we wrote last year in our 1971 story, "even for a year that falls squarely in the heart of the 'classic rock' era, it was a particularly classic year."

The following is excerpted from Randy Rhoads by Steven Rosen and Andrew Klein (Velocity Publishing Group). In 1979, Randy Rhoads had to decide whether to stay with a struggling unknown act called Quiet Riot or join forces with the famous former lead singer from Black Sabbath. The decision wasn't as easy as you think. Dana Strum -- the Hollywood-based Badaxe and Slaughter bassist who Ozzy considered for his band -- recalls the events surrounding Randy Rhoads' audition for Ozzy Osbourne.